


Vivir en Paz

by sebviathan



Category: Better Call Saul (TV), Breaking Bad
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Flashbacks, Heavy Angst, M/M, Pre-Canon, Reverse Chronology, max is relevant to literally every single thing that gus does
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:07:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25665637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sebviathan/pseuds/sebviathan
Summary: Working backwards through Gustavo's life. And thus, looking forward.
Relationships: Max Arciniega/Gustavo Fring
Comments: 1
Kudos: 22





	Vivir en Paz

It isn't his life that flashes before his eyes.

It's a red sky in the countryside just out of Santiago. It's a symphony of gunshots and horrific wailing. It's a shattered kneecap and a piece of metal shrapnel stuck in his hip. It's 1986.

In the instant that Gustavo sees the device in Hector's chair, he has no choice but to go back there again. Back to where _he'd planned for this all along_. It was one of the most difficult things he'd ever done—to willingly put himself in the blast zone of an explosion, with no way to be completely sure how severely he'd be injured, simply to remove suspicion from himself.

It's adrenaline flowing through him as he drags himself across the gravel and aims his gun deliberately above the guerrillas' heads.

He knew for months what was going to happen. He knew that his presence would likely be required to escort Pinochet back to the city, that he would be no further away than the car directly behind, and that the Patriotic Front didn't care about the possibility that he might be harmed in the process. He knew that _Max_ knew all that. He had to wonder, then, if Max purposefully designed that bomb to have a smaller blast than it could have had.

It's the most relief that Gustavo has ever felt to still be alive, and it's a startling lack of grief for the fact that Pinochet is as well.

Nevermind that the assassination attempt failed, everything improved for them after that. The doctors told him that it would be at least a year before he could walk without aid, and even then he would never be able to put much pressure—not even enough to run—on the injured leg again. That meant that he could be relieved from duty, and the damage he took while supposedly protecting Pinochet meant he did so with honor.

Gustavo's rigorous life was over. He no longer had to hide his true face. He could now simply live in peace with Max.

It's 1989 and onward—for the both of them this time. Glimpses of a different road where he doesn't make that one fateful mistake. Perhaps he takes a different route in proposing business to the cartel, perhaps they move to America outright and don't get involved with the cartel at all. They figure it out. Max lives out his dream either way. Their empire grows and no one can do a damn thing. When Walter White begins cooking and selling in their territory, Max wants to meet his competition. They learn what motivates Walter—that he doesn't want to put his family in debt for his medical bills. They initially take pity on him, decide that they'll pay Walter off to leave this business alone. When Walter refuses their charity, he and Max agree that if there are simply no future medical bills, then that will be best for everyone. Ideally Gustavo pulls the trigger. But he thinks that at that point Max might want to do it himself.

Mike has already killed Hector and the aftermath made no difference to him. Jesse Pinkman leaves the business and gets to bettering himself sooner. Gale never gets involved, but hopefully puts his skills toward medicine and finds a nice guy to settle down with. Victor and Tyrus remain loyal, living bodyguards. His and Max's adopted daughters might even consider them uncles.

None of _this_ ever happens.

And just as quickly as he left it, Gustavo comes back to this moment. This time he walks away from the blast almost like nothing happened. With what's left of his brain he hates himself for every last mistake he's ever made, but as he straightens his tie, he's relieved.

His rigorous life is over. His face hides nothing. He can be with Max again.

*

To think, he once believed that he had caught a glimpse of Max shining out of _Walter's_ eyes.

 _No_ —not his eyes. Out of his _meth_. Out of his scientific mind. His precise chemistry. It matched Max's ability so closely that Gustavo ignored the red flags of what the man lacked. He made the second worst mistake of his life and focused on that _more_ than the eyes. And Walter's... were dead long before he proved himself to be unstable.

That is, before he killed the person who actually did have Max's compassion and warmth.

Gustavo's one excuse is that Gale was the one who convinced him to hire Walter in the first place.

Quite frankly, he's never understood chemistry at all. Walking around his newly furnished superlab fills him with an intense excitement, as well as nostalgia for those days that he would visit Max at the university, and a sorrow that Max isn't here to see this... but he knows that he cannot truly, intellectually appreciate what goes on in here. So much as glancing at a list of formulas has always given him a headache and, worse so, made him upset that it just _wouldn't_ click with him like almost everything else did.

He didn't ever voice that, but he knew Max could tell. Any time that he wound up rambling about his work, he would catch himself and apologize for "speaking in what must sound like pure gibberish"—no matter how many times Gustavo reassured him that he enjoyed seeing him passionate regardless.

It was always true. It still is. Gale says that he can promise a purity of 96—he's so earnest, and that already sounds so high, that everything else for the moment is meaningless.

"After all, how pure can pure be?" Gustavo asks him, feeling entirely confident.

Since Max first revealed his idea to run a meth empire, he'd assumed that purity was just numbers. It was the one part that made sense to him. He'd had the impression of the way that a fraction of a second would put competitive swimmers ahead of each other; ultimately, the winner was just marginally better than the others at the top. Being the _absolute_ best was more of a title than anything. Practically speaking, however, surely their buyers wouldn't notice a mere couple degrees' difference. Surely being _among_ the best was all they needed in the chemistry department.

Perhaps it was only because Gustavo never had reason to voice it, but Max never told him otherwise. His desire to be the best didn't consume him like it did to so many others. He never became arrogant. He never even bragged about it unless immediately relevant. He simply continued to become better with each cook and marked his progression with celebration and pride. Gustavo could only be proud with him.

"I know... that you want the best," Gale tells him, and whatever makes his voice tremble seems to reach out and shake Gustavo as well.

He was so ready to move onto the next step a moment ago. Now, he gathers the humility to ask Gale to explain in the most layman of terms what _exactly_ is such a "tremendous gap" about that last four percent. The man is absolutely delighted to do so.

It's something to do with exponential decay, as far as Gustavo understands. The less purity there is to breach, the more difficult it becomes. Conquering one obstacle creates ten more, in Gale's experience of toying with differing methods.

"And in terms of the quality?"

"Well, it's... I obviously can't speak personally to the sensation of the high, but from my _objective_ knowledge of the effects on brain chemistry, it's like... well. It's the same reason you pay extra for guac, isn't it?"

The last batch that Max cooked, Gustavo remembers, he had marked down at 99.2 percent.

 _Pretty darn pure,_ Gale's voice echoes in his head.

*

The second and last in-person visit that Gustavo ever makes to his offshore bank is to set up Gale's account. It isn't necessary whatsoever that _anyone_ physically travel there to establish a new name under Gustavo's parent account, but when Gale expresses his excitement at the idea of seeing the Cayman Islands... he simply doesn't have the heart to correct him.

It _is_ likely the last excuse he'll ever have to take an honest-to-god vacation, or at least get a change of scenery, even if everything from here on out goes exactly as planned. He might as well go see how the place has changed in the last twenty years.

It takes seven hours to fly there, starting early in the morning. They'll be on the flight back home before tomorrow, as Gustavo can't afford to be missing for more than a day, so they have very limited time for recreation. Gale, despite having gone full tourist, clearly understands this. He's printed out an itemized schedule to "make use of every last minute and maximize enjoyment."

"You know, not long from now, you'll have the money to come back and visit as many times as you want," Gustavo thinks to tell him, amused, as Gale scarfs down his early lunch. "There's... really no need to rush."

"By then I'll just have my heart set on travelling somewhere else," Gale shrugs. "And... to be honest, Mr. Fring, I find it pretty hard to function without some kind of instructions. If I didn't decide what I wanted to do before I came here, I just wouldn't know what to do at all."

Gustavo is silent for a long moment, then reaches across the table to slide Gale's schedule toward himself. The allotted time for each activity is pretty tight, even _with_ the proximity being accounted for. He slides it back without a word.

Gale immediately stops eating again.

"What—are they no good? Should I do something else?"

"I haven't been here in a long time," he says. "I have no way of knowing what's worth doing and what isn't. You can do whatever you like, Gale."

That doesn't seem to satisfy him. His gaze is no less concerned.

"Well... what are _you_ going to do? A-after we get my account situated, I mean."

He supposes, after another long moment, that he has no reason to lie. "I'm going to take a hike. If there's one thing I'm certain hasn't changed, it's that the views are beautiful, here."

In his peripheral as he resumes eating, then, Gustavo catches the other man looking obsessively over his schedule. Finally, Gale perks his head up one last time to ask,

"May I join you?"

He'd like to say that he doesn't know why he said yes— _why he gave Gale the opportunity to ask in the first place_ —but he knows himself too well. Even and especially the parts that he feels guilty about. At the same time, rationally, he doubts that Max would actually mind. Max wanted nothing more than for what they had to not have to be a secret.

When the two of them walked this path, it was definitely more lush. Gustavo swears that the coastline doesn't even stick out as far now. Truly, though, neither he nor Max cared nearly as much about the scenery as the chance to be alone out in the open rather than behind closed doors.

They were here first and foremost to take the second step in their empire—right after the first batch of meth that Max cooked in their new, official lab. They'd started Los Pollos Hermanos two and a half years ago and it was going even stronger than they could have expected. They had a plan to get the cartel's attention that would certainly not take more than another month. They were, naturally, celebrating. And they had all the privacy in the world in this very spot.

It was about time that they got some pictures together, Gustavo had thought. Neither of them were ever much for getting photographed, with himself already having spent enough time in front of a camera as the face of an institution that he hated, and with Max... having a very unfortunately low opinion of his own appearance. Or, for whatever reason, he claimed to not care much for looking at himself.

Yet Max was the one who offered to take the pictures. It made sense, anyway—he had longer arms and steadier hands. He was also more disappointed when almost none of them turned out to be decent, least of all the ones he'd tried to take of them kissing. The best one by far still had Max squished into the corner and made Gustavo look so much shorter than he actually was.

Once he reaches that spot for the second time, Gustavo unhesitatingly takes a copy of that photo out of his pocket. He doesn't think about Gale at all while he holds it out and shifts his footing until he finally matches it against the landscape.

Then he stares at it for such a long time that he has to be impressed that Gale was able to maintain silence. Perhaps he just knew better than to interrupt, somehow.

After Gustavo lowers his arm and holds the photo closer to himself, the other man inches closer as well.

"You look very happy together," Gale mutters, almost like he's apologizing.

All he can think of is how they had for the most part laughed off their bad pictures and figured that they would have plenty of opportunities to take more. He has half a mind to throw the photo into the sea, just so a copy of it would stay here.

"...We were."

*

Los Pollos Hermanos shuts down indefinitely after their meeting with Don Eladio. A sign out front claims that their head chef and co-owner has contracted a sudden illness, and thus that quality food cannot be promised until he recovers. All the employees will be compensated in full for the first week of missing hours, as it was such short notice.

The news will eventually be broken that Max has passed away due to an infection spreading rapidly to his lungs. Gustavo doesn't know when, yet.

In the meantime he can barely sleep or eat. He spends far more time just staring at that picture, knowing it's the only way that he'll ever see Max's face again. He devotes a whole day to making copies upon copies of it, just in case the original is ever lost.

It takes him an odd amount of time to actually look at _himself_ in that picture—to notice how he looks like a different person entirely. The man he sees in the mirror now would have been unrecognizable then. His smile was so wide. His hair was so _long_.

That was how Max liked it. Especially when it was relaxed and settled into softer curls that he could easily tangle his fingers in.

He was so upset when Gustavo cut those curls off for the sake of the meeting. Max had run his hands over his newly cropped hair like someone had died, and he insisted for hours after the fact that _surely_ that wasn't necessary in order to appear professional enough— _I mean, I understand, but I still think you're fucking paranoid._ It was only the next morning—the morning _of_ —that he stopped being as dramatic about it.

"Are you still mad at me?" Gustavo had asked first thing upon waking.

"I was never _mad_ at you. I just... God, I'm going to miss it."

"It'll grow back."

"I know. But not for a while."

"Didn't you like me when I was still nearly bald?"

"Yes, _yes_ , of course I did... Really, Gustavo, you're the one who spoiled _me_ by growing it out."

If not for Max's suggestion all the way back in Santiago, when he had just left the junta for good, he likely wouldn't have let it grow even to this length.

And certainly no one else is ever going to be running their hands through it again.

Practically the instant that he shaves it all off, Gustavo gains some clarity. He has a great deal of his revenge plan outlined within a week.

*

Only once he has no voice left with which to cry out his anguish, having stared at Max's lifeless eyes for what feels like an eternity, does Eladio haul him up. He turns Gustavo around and pushes a green-rimmed shot glass into his hand.

"And after all that, I'm still not a bad host," he says, his grin disgustingly cheerful. "Drink up, _businessman_. I'm sure you need it. That's 150-proof right there."

He stares at the tequila for another eternity. His back, facing Max, burns.

Finally, he gathers his voice back up and says, hoarse, "I need to drive home."

"If the boss wants you to drink, you drink," says Salamanca. Eladio and Bolsa nod. Gustavo feels mere threads away from snapping and becoming rabid a second time.

But he doesn't.

He's positive that it isn't poisoned—and that's the worst part. The sensation in his throat is nothing compared to how hot his back continues to feel the longer that he stands here, facing _this way_ , as though nothing significant is behind him. To numb this is the _last_ thing he wants to do.

As he swallows, he thinks of a million and one ways that he might use the glass for an unintended purpose. Those threads remain intact. Old instincts, he supposes.

Eladio immediately takes it from him and begins escorting him toward the gate. _Now,_ Gustavo willfully cuts a thread and plants his feet.

"I came with Max." Thanks to the tequila, he speaks smoothly this time. "I am _leaving_ with Max."

He can hear both Salamanca and Bolsa laugh. He doesn't care. He just keeps staring at Eladio, who stares back cooly. Then, after a moment, the other man's gaze is lifted by some amusement. It's far more frightening than his glare.

"Sure, why not!"

He grabs Gustavo by the back of his suit and jerks him back toward the pool. Seeing Max again—seeing the still-growing cloud of red in the water underneath him, hearing that subtle dripping, remembering that the same blood is caked onto his own face... is as much relief as it is agonizing.

"If you can drag him out of here yourself," Eladio teases, "you can have him."

And the agony feels as though it may kill him as much as it drives him forward.

**Author's Note:**

> every day i think of more things to add to my outline of how a gus-centric prequel spinoff would go, and one of those things is that [El Derecho de Vivir en Paz](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkXise2bHE0) would have to be thematically super significant and prevalent throughout the show. not just for the revolution as a whole but for gus and max as characters and a relationship.
> 
> another thing is that i sincerely hope, if that prequel series ever gets made, that it's established that the purity level of max's meth was even higher than walt's. we know the top purity of every meth cook in the show EXCEPT him, so it would be the perfect reveal. and even though i didnt' think of it until i began writing this, i believe it wholeheartedly now.
> 
> also, that picture that they took at the cayman islands? if you don't remember, is canon and appeared in 5x01. but at pretty low-res so i drew my own version of it [here](https://bassdraws2.tumblr.com/post/624135402297688064)
> 
> and i've drawn [them both old together](https://bassdraws2.tumblr.com/post/623927859558449152) in the alternate timeline where max lives that i mentioned. 
> 
> ANYWAY for more gus content follow my brba/bcs blog @dedicadoamax on tumblr


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